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Buck

BUCK STARED IN CONFUSION as Eli McCormick appeared at the edge of the lake, about a foot from Emily.

Then Henry Wilburt, looking stunned and confused.

Stu Peterson came next. He just blinked into existence, like the others. He was gripping a shotgun, and there was nothing but a bloody hole where his left eye should have been. He quickly looked around with his good eye, seemed to realize where he was, and cursed.

The hole in Peterson’s head vanished—

Healed

Disappeared

—Buck had no clue. One second it was there, then it wasn’t.

A boy appeared after that.

A goddamn boy wearing a bomb on his chest.

Then the cavern filled with voices, so many it was like the entire town was there.

Because they are, you dumb shit , his mind muttered. Every last one of them.

Buck remembered his own shotgun, still strapped to his back. He grabbed it, brought it around, and fired at the ice at the edge of the lake.

The boom of the blast echoed all around them, and rather than fade, it grew louder. Buck realized what he’d done when the first stalactite dropped from the roof of the cave and crashed through the ice, breaking it. Another fell after that. Another. The deep rumble of the blast echoed and grew, shaking the cave apart.

“Help me!” he shouted, reaching down, grabbing a chunk of ice and throwing it aside.

Buck reached down into the water, managed to grab the collar of Ellie’s shirt, and pulled her up. She let out a loud gasp as she broke the surface, she grabbed at the rocky shore and crawled out, choking out water as she went. He managed to get Evelyn out, too. Fighting the cold and ice, he heaved her out with enough force to toss her to the ground at his side. Mason came out behind her, clawing his way up. Buck was about to reach back in for Emily, his Emily, when the other Emily placed a hand on his shoulder.

“I am to remain.”

“No way, that’s bullshit. You’re coming with me!”

“I was always to remain,” she said softly before turning to Riley Sanchez. “Both me and her.”

Although the cave was coming down around them, the girl looked perfectly calm, at peace. The names written on her arms growing bright enough to light the air around her.

“That is her station,” Emily said. “I am to secure those deserving of their place in the lake; she is to console the innocents. Her station and mine, as it always was. As it always will be.”

Buck wasn’t hearing any of this. Although he couldn’t feel his arms anymore, he plunged them back down into the icy water and tried to grab his Emily, but she was too deep, too far down to reach.

Behind him, Ellie managed to say, “Buck. Where are we? What’s happening?”

“Get everyone out!” he yelled back at her. He looked around, found Robby. “Show them the way! Get them all out!”

Robby nodded, helped his sister to her feet. He pointed back the way they’d come. “That way! Everyone! That way!”

Ellie understood. She started helping people go in that direction, back toward the hole that would take them out.

Buck turned back to the water, his eyes meeting Emily’s. She looked back at him, the sorrow weighing heavily on her face. “I can’t leave you again,” he told her. “I can’t spend another second apart from you. Not now, not ever.”

“Your station,” the other Emily said softly.

“My station.”

“So it shall be.”

Buck stood. He kicked off his shoes and stepped into the water.

It was no longer cold.

It was perfect.

From beneath the surface, his Emily smiled up at him, both hands reaching as he stepped forward and sank to her.

Buck never saw Cody Hill bypass the remote trigger on his explosive vest, never saw the boy press the battery directly to the leads attached to his makeshift blasting cap. There was only an incredibly bright light.